Under Construction

Keeping everyone cool here when the temperatures exceed 95 has its challenges. Our summers put everything to the test when it comes to just surviving. Plants are monitored daily with container plants needing watered at least once per day. The animals..well its not uncommon for us to refill water morning and evening. It just gets that hot here. The chickens seem to fair better than the rabbits, so we've had to take extra measures to ensure their safety. One of them includes finishing a roof over their enclosure.



This has been part of our plan for the area since the start. Trying to find time to construct it has been our challenge! There is nothing like pressure as your motivation. With the sun scorching down and knowing my dear husband was going to have to manage animal care while the kids and I were away for a week got the ball rolling. With just a couple of days to work on it this is what I've finished so far. I do plan to cover the whole enclosure with chicken wire like the chicken yard. I have the bamboo roofing tied on here until we get back.

By covering the rabbit enclosure with chicken wire, we'll be able to turn the chickens loose in there to take care of any weeds (surprisingly the rabbits would rather dig than eat grass, lol) and fire ants. The chickens LOVE to eat them. I guess its a spicy treat or something. This will save a lot of labor and be much healthier for everyone. Since I use the rabbit manure for my garden, I don't want to treat the area with any sort of fire ant or weed killer. It seems like a pretty good deal to me!

This is NOT about construction...



I plucked this huge tomato hornworm off of one of my tomato plants this year. Can you believe how large they grow? It's no wonder they can consume branches of leaves at a time on my poor tomato plants! This year I'm thankful the population of these boogers has been low. Last year I was put through the test taking care of this problem. For those looking for an organic way to handle them try bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) Some labels just say "caterpillar killer" on them and it has Bt as the active ingredient. Bt is a protein that caterpillars can't digest and that is what kills them. Humans are not harmed at all by it. You do need to reapply it on your plants after a good rain and every few weeks to keep your plants protected. Bt is not selective in the type of caterpillar it kills so be careful on where you use it. I have dill and parsley that swallowtail butterflies use for their host plants. It will kill their caterpillars too.

One personal satisfaction I get when I find a giant tomato hornworm on my tomatoes is that they "pop" green slime when I stomp on them. Gross I know, but hey...someone has to pay! Thankfully the damage done by the hormworms usually doesn't cause major harm to my tomato plants. In most cases the plant will recover just fine. I have even seen a few plants eaten to nearly nothing and recover but I still don't like 'em.

Tomatoes Galore

Another added bonus with the cooler temperatures is that the tomatoes are back into production. The plants are growing everywhere! Next year I will definitely make the trellises higher. Some of my plants are about 5-6 ft tall and sprawled out everywhere. The weight of the vines have cause some of them to split, but thankfully they still are alive and well!

One of the tomatoes that have done the best are the small ones shown. These tomatoes have gotten larger in size than before and may be the size of a cherry now. I'll have to ask my friend who gave the tomatoes to me last year what type they are. They are really delicious, especially in pasta salads. Yum!!

Teeny Tiny Tomatoes

We LOVE tomatoes here. In fact, that is the one vegetable my husband always asks if I've planted enough of them. The eager anticipation of fresh from the vine ripened tomatoes is mouth watering!

This year we've planted several varieties including Celebrity, Rutger's, Dark Cherry and these little gems that I have pictured. I'm really not sure of the name. The plants were volunteers from last year. I had gotten some from a fellow gardener, composted a few, then here they are...new plants.

The tomatoes are marble sized or smaller, but delicious. I like the fact they ripen so fast that the grasshoppers fail to get them fast enough. It's the small victories I celebrate!

Growing organically and living with grasshoppers has it's challenges, but the fight is worth it.